Carlos Jean

One day a few years ago I got a call on my cell phone from this guy named Carlos Jean. He wanted to know if I could help him with his English. We arranged to meet the next day and we’ve been in contact off and on ever since. I had no idea who this guy was until I mentioned his name to my son who filled me in on the extensive music career of Mr. Jean.

Working with Carlos gave me the opportunity to take my family to his performances, concerts and film premiers. The year that Jean had a weekly radio program on Maxima FM in Madrid my son, under the name of Zeon, was a regular participant.

The English classes with Carlos were almost as varied as his professional career. The last classes we had were dedicated to writing lyrics to some of the songs of his new CD Mr Miracle, which will be released tomorrow, 24th April.

There’s one “class” that I will never forget. We were working in his recording studio on the lyrics to a song called “Have a Nice Day”. There was one spoken part that corresponded to a radio DJ. At one point he asked me to read this section and then, without any explanation, stuck the microphone in my face and told me to read it again. After recording it twice he turned to me and said he would use it in the song. Frankly I thought he was pulling my leg. That was a year and a half ago.

I had all but forgotten about my 30 second recording session when, a month ago, my daughter came running into my room and turned on the radio. She told me they were playing the new single from Carlos Jean’s new CD. I recognised the music immediately but didn’t realise what it was. Just then we heard the “spoken part” and I turned to her and said, “That’s me!”
http://www.carlosjean.com
http://www.los40.com

You can't TEACH a language!

The education system in Spain has gotten worse and worse over the years with the biggest failure by far being in the area of second languages. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the fact that most of the teachers are native Spanish speakers. A good teacher, which I will define in a future post, will always be a good teacher!

The problem is the method, how the class is conducted. If, as children, we all learned our native language years before being taught to read and write then why do Spanish students spend the majority of their class time reading and writing? From the moment they enter the language classroom they should be interacting orally in that second language.

A language is something you do, not something you study. Memorizing a vocabulary list is useless if you can't function in a language. You can't learn to swim, ride a bike, play a sport or a musical instrument from a book.

It's no surprise that the biggest impediment for the Spanish university graduate applying for his/her first job is their lack of proficiency in English.

Why Blog?

I've spent the last couple of days wondering why I've started a blog and what I should be writing here. Having had a webpage and forum for years I've ample opportunity to express my opinions. So, why blog? ...

Getting Started

Victor suggested that I start a blog. We will soon see if he was right or not.